English artist and musician Ossian Brown's book Haunted Air is filled with these spectacular vintage photographs of American Halloween festivities between 1875-1955. The author collected the photographs from a number of old photo albums.

Brown delighted in the resourcefulness of the subjects, some of whom were living in poverty, yet still combined the dark side of their imaginations with ingenuity to produce what he calls “these incredible and phantasmagorical apparitions."

The frightening black-and-white captures of homemade masks and costumes are perfect inspiration for tales of horror. Some images remind me of The Shining and other books and films that make great use of flashbacks to horrific pasts.

The foreword to Haunted Air is penned by film director and master of surrealist horror David Lynch. He writes in part,

“All the clocks had stopped. A void out of time. And here they are – looking out and holding themselves still – holding still at that point where two worlds join – the familiar – and the other.”